For almost three complete Iron Man movies, we know that the shrapnel in Tony Stark's heart is unremovable and will kill him if he doesn't keep an arc reactor in his chest to power a magnet. Not only is this a constant reminder of his previous hubris as a weapons manufacturer, it also powers his damn armor. Then, suddenly, at the end of Iron Man 3 the shrapnel is no longer unremovable, Stark has some surgery, gets his arc reactor taken out, and is fine and dandy. What the hell? If this was an option why didn't Tony do this back when the arc reactor was poisoning him? Actually, why didn't he do it in the first Iron Man movie let the minute he got home?

EXTREMIS, duh

1) What the hell was Howard Stark thinking in Iron Man 2?

Sorry, Iron Man 2, but nothing about this makes sense. So Tony Stark is dying because the palladium core in the arc reactor in his chest — the arc reactor that's keeping the shrapnel in his heart magnetized and preventing it from killing him — is killing him. Bummer. He needs a new element, and discovers the atomic structure for one hiding in the Stark Expo diorama his dad built, thanks to a helpful film Howard made, addressing his son in the future, heavily hinting that there was something special hiding in said diorama. Now, ignore the fact that this brand-new element is also the one that Tony needs to save his life at this exact moment. Also ignore the fact that Howard made a filmstrip to insinuate the importance of the diorama to his adult son on the off chance Hydra might kill him and his wife in a car accident before he grew up. Howard's best plan for showing his son this new, world-changing element was to hide it in his diorama of an old fairground? A diorama that, along with the film strip, was kept in some kind of SHIELD storage unit for decades, that no one ever threw away, and that Nick Fury only randomly handed over to Tony? Maybe Howard could have hidden it in something a bit easier for Tony to have gotten a hold off. Like, say, a letter.

IM2 is the worst non-Incredible Hulk movie in the MCU imho

4) Why did Cap have to stay on the ship to wreck it?

I understand why the movie needed him to stay on the ship — so he could have one last tearful goodbye with Peggy Carter over the giant jet's communicator. But why did he need to fly the jet directly into the ground? Why couldn't he have pointed it towards the ground and jumped out? If the jet somehow always reverted to its previous destination without someone manually controlling it — which would be pretty weird in and of itself — why didn't Cap just jam something against the steering wheel to keep it on track? Or why didn't Cap try and land it somewhere in the non-freezing part of the Atlantic ocean, where he could try to swim out?

5) How did Thor get back to Earth for Avengers?

At the end of Thor, the Bifrost bridge is destroyed, and everyone is super-clear that Thor can no longer return to Midgard. It's why he can't see his new lady friend Jane Foster at the end of the movie. Then comes The Avengers, and boom, Thor's back in town. The movie doesn't even try to offer an explanation, although at least by the time Thor: The Dark World rolls around the Asgardians have reconstructed the Bifrost so people can come and go. In interviews, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston mutter something about Odin using his power to send Thor to Midgard to chase after his brother, but if that's the case, then Thor breaking the bridge wasn't nearly as big a deal as Thor tried to pretend, because all he had to do was ask dad for the keys to the car, metaphorically speaking. Also, explanations given in press interviews don't count.

MAGIC

10) Why is [Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier]?

[Spoiler (click to open)] Leaving aside the fact that the nascent Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division must have been monumentally stupid to let former Nazi scientist Arnim Zola have the resources to reassemble Hydra right under their noses, or that the agency somehow managed to consist of 50% Hydra agents and no one figured it out for 60 years. But what the hell was Zola's Hydra algorithm doing on that boat in the first place? The algorithm was supposed to help the new Insight helicarriers target potential threats to Hydra; there's no reason to put it on another ship's computers, and there's no reason for Agent Sitwell to be carrying it anywhere. It couldn't do anything other than wait to be a target for a shady Nick Fury op.

lmfao my non comic-reading friends/family always get so pissed when I force them to stay after the credits. And then I spaz out and go OMG THAT'S______ and they're like right, I need the toilet, no1curr.

sorry mate. I am the target audience, I'm always the one freaking out like I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING MARVEL I SEE IT which means I'm the one my friends lean their head in towards and go "okay, explain?" You just need to go see these movies with a friend like that!

Off topic but I just want to say how much I love that MCU panders to heavily to female gaze and that only a small handful of the female characters are actually overtly sexualized and contextually it's totally appropriate. There is a reason I see all their movies like 8x in theaters and I'm definitely dropping the 150 bucks to buy that stupid suitcase phase 1 thing and probably buy myself one of the hot toys figures.

edit: I apologize I am so wired right now I don't know what is going on anymore

I really loved the treatment of the women in Cap 2. There were literally no damsels in distress. Even Sharon Carter (YES I LOVE SHARON, COME AT ME ONTD) who is ostensibly Cap's love interest in the comics wasn't there to provide romance but had a small storyline of her own.

agreed. like, that one about thor getting to earth after the bifrost was destroyed was even explained IN THE MOVIE. loki gave thor a bunch of shit about how odin had to probably summon a shitload of dark energy to get thor back to earth to get loki/the tesseract, and that without the tesseract, there would be no way for thor to get back to asgard.

I'm sure there was a level of clearance you had to have at one point to access the elevator but after he died, they hid it and of course it didn't need to be transferred to the new SHIELD headquarters.

mte that was a stupid corner to write themselves into, especially after that great scene in Avengers where Tony bonds with Bruce by comparing the shrapnel (and thus, the necessity of the arc reactor) to the Hulk; blessing and a curse etc

Agreed. I mean, I'm two episodes behind on SHIELD (UK pace) so whenever I see a post about it I don't even glance at the tags. My responsibility to avoid spoilers, so long as people aren't putting stuff in the title.

Somebody got realllllly pissed at me when i responded to a rumored spoiler about Spiderman under a spoiler cut saying it wasn't a rumor. I didn't post the spoiler and you'd have to click the cut to know what it was. I'm paranoid now.

Welltbf, Spiderman hasn't come out yet, but TWS has been out for weeks now, so people should just use their common sense. Usually in a post like this I would write spoilers in the cut text and let ppl go crazy in the comments, I'm too lazy to stay editing the post itself :P

Yep, and Loki even taunts Thor about 'how much dark magic did Father have to conjure to get you here', which I'd take to imply that whatever Odin had to do was either very draining, dangerous, or borderline-to-really unethical. Nothing he'd do just to let Thor go see his Midgardian girlfriend.

EXACTLY. and odin only had enough power to get thor to earth in the first place, but not for him to get back. that was part of the reason why thor needed to find the tesseract, because he needed it to get back to asgard.

okay in the snowman why does the snowman meltit's christmas day in a cold climate there was still a ton of snow on the groundand even if he did melt why couldn't the boy just rebuild himi know it's supposed to teach the lesson of cherish what you have because it could be gone out of nowhere in seconds

In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

The Thor one can be easily explained as just ~magic or that Odin used his powers to send Thor back and it was exhausting to do and made him weak and he can't do it too much or he'll go into convenient Odin sleep. Dude is old.

Or he knew of one of Loki's little paths but I can't remember if they knew about them in Thor 2 or is they were surprised.

Couldn't the ship at the beginning of Cap 2 be explained as a [SPOILERS!!]hydra ship?

Gotta say the "how" Tony had his heart fixed doesn't bother me, it's the "why". He made a big to do in Avengers while speaking with Banner. About how the chest piece is a part of him now. Until... he decides it isn't? Kinda bothered me like Rogue taking the cure in X3.

Plus, it was pretty clear that he had integrated the arc technology into all of his new suits, making the one in his chest redundant. Having the shrapnel remain where it was was tantamount to a death sentence and he was making a solid commitment to Pepper. Removing the shrapnel was removing the gun from his head.

Also, if I remember correctly, the surgeon was the heart specialist he was being introduced to at the beginning of the movie. All of his scenes were cut, but I think he and Tony were discussing removing the shrapnel before the whole thing with the Mandarin went down. Probably a Christmas surprise to Pepper 'cause that rabbit was a pretty shitty present.

I don't get why people get so bothered about Rogue taking the cure in X3. In all 3 movies, it's pretty clear that Rogue hates her powers and thinks of it as a curse. She never accepts her powers as she does in the comics and I was happy for movie!Rogue when she took the cure.